


The Disappearance of Alice Fink

by okemmelie



Series: A Strange House [1]
Category: Black Friday - Team StarKid, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Blogging, Gen, Horror, Mystery, as in this fic is formatted as blog posts, like idk a mystery with horror elements, tagging is my enemy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25289020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okemmelie/pseuds/okemmelie
Summary: Alice goes missing. The news writes it off as just another drunk girl disappearing after a party, but maybe – just maybe – there's something else at play?
Relationships: Alice/Deb (The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals)
Series: A Strange House [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947250
Comments: 104
Kudos: 44





	1. Alice

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i've been toying with the idea of a hatchetfield teens centric horror piece for a while and this is the result (or at least the first chapter of it). this is a horror mystery with one young girl's disappearance as the first big event, but the main characters are all teens and children
> 
> additionally: consistent chapter length? don't know her

Sometimes people disappear. That’s something I’ve been aware of my entire life. I just never thought it’d happen to someone I knew.

My name’s Elias and I attend Hatchetfield High. And that shouldn’t be something special, because it’s never been anything special. People always complain about not being something special until a girl disappears and suddenly, the nation’s eyes are on you. And maybe that’s “a bad example, Elias” and “not at all a common occurrence, you fool”, but it’s exactly what happened to Hatchetfield, so uhh. Sucks to suck, I guess.

Alice Fink. You know her, I know her, we all know her. Two weeks ago, she was just a “normal” girl, though I suppose that depends on your definition of normal: She’s got a girlfriend, she attended classes and her parents are divorced (and with US divorce rates at 40-50%, I’d argue that’s pretty normal!). Last week, she attended a party in downtown Hatchetfield. People saw her  _ at  _ the party but now she’s missing and no one’s seen her since that night.

Of course, you probably already knew that and let me tell you, I am not here to waste your time. Right now, the leading theories on Alice Fink’s disappearance are in the realms of “drunk girl getting kidnapped”, “drunk girl accidentally falling in the water because she’s drunk” and other things about her being drunk and unfortunate.

One: Some of you do not talk kindly about presumed drunk girls online and you should probably reconsider how you view them. Two: I was at that party (sorry mom) and Alice did not drink. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her drink. So like…. bruh. Three: Something weird is happening in Hatchetfield. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I think it’s what took Alice.

I’m going to figure this out. I’m going to get her back.

– Elias


	2. Lex

I did some digging and found out who last saw her. “Digging” might be an overstatement, considering that I just overheard someone talking about it in the parking lot this morning.

It’s this girl, Lex, she has chemistry with me. She’s kind of super intimidating and, if I’m being honest, not very good at chemistry, but I’m just going to have to get over myself and talk to her. Luckily I’m heading to chemistry right now.

EDIT 1: Great news! She’s happy* to talk to me about what happens. We’re having a meeting at lunch.

*Yes, she called me a nerd, told me to fuck off and threatened to punch me, but then I started a fire when our teacher was out of the lab and she thought that was cool or whatever. You know what, it doesn’t matter what she thought. We’re having a meeting and I’m finding stuff out. Update coming later today.

EDIT 2: Did Lex make me pay for lunch for her and her boyfriend? Yes. Yes she did. But was it worth it? … Well, ultimately not really, no.

Ethan had been walking her home from the party that they’d been attending for, as she put it, “business purposes”. They both look scary so I did not ask what “business purposes” meant.

Alice had left around the same time as they had. She’d walked in front of them for about ten minutes, then she’d turned and they’d continued towards the trailer park.

Then I asked Lex if she knew what Alice was doing at that street in the middle of the night, especially considering she lives uptown. Lex responded by shrugging, taking my apple and then telling me she doesn’t really know Alice and asking me why I care about this stuff. I told her about my investigation and she rolled her eyes at me, told me it was stupid and left.

Overall? Not a very successful lead. Except that after her boyfriend took my sandwich and got up to leave as well, he told me to check with Deb. Honestly cannot believe I did not think of that myself. I’ll be back once I’ve talked to her!

– Elias

EDIT 3: Just a quick clarification. Deb is her girlfriend. Elias out!


	3. Deb

Exciting things are happening. Allow me to start from the beginning.

So I did it. I talked to Deb. And I’ll be real, guys, Deb is a lot more intimidating without Alice around, because she’s hanging out with those smoke club kids (which makes sense because she’s IN the smoke club, but shh). One of them is called Danny and he’s kind of cute, but in a mysterious and misunderstood bad boy kind of way, y’know??? Not that that matters to the case. I just think he’s cute, okay?

Anyway, Deb’s pretty nice? Like, the smoke club as a whole? Super intimidating. But alone, Deb’s much nicer than Lex. And much less scary and mean.

Getting off track again. Sorry. I spoke to Deb. Asked her what was up and stuff, to which she obviously had questions because 1) her girlfriend just went missing, and 2) I’m not really friends with either of them so?????

But I told her. I told her that I’m investigating and then she told me that she’d tell me what she told the police: Alice left the party early without saying goodbye. Which is weird! At least in both Deb and my opinion, because like ???? who just leaves a party without saying goodbye to their girlfriend?

Then I told her, I think something weird is going on. It made her go really quiet for a moment. Then she asked me: “Weird how?”

Which… I don’t know about you guys, but I found that promising. I really wish I had had something more concrete to tell Deb than the fact that I wasn’t sure yet, but at least it seemed to be enough to convince her to tell me more.

Apparently Alice was acting off a while before she went missing. She’d insist on walking home alone, she’d spend lunch breaks doodling houses and doors and apparently she had started texting Deb late at night. As someone who is astronomically bad at going to bed at a reasonable time I didn’t find that too weird, until Deb told me Alice usually goes to bed at 1030 pm and that these were 4 am messages.

Guys. I think we really might have something on our hands. Now I just need to figure out where to go from here. I wish the next step was painfully obvious, but turns out that solving a mystery that the police and the entire community of Hatchetfield as well as some Clyvesdale folks haven’t been able to solve yet is hard work and not at all as easy and convenient as they make it seem on TV? Wack.

– Elias


	4. Ethan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is dedicated to everyone who saw the name elias and went "oh like the guy from the magnus archives" because even though it was not the intention, we do still stan

Something easy and convenient happened.

I don’t know if it relates directly to what is happening with Alice and at some level, I hope it doesn’t because I fear that that would be terribly unfortunate for all parts involved, but seeing as it was brought to my attention as a direct result of these blog posts, I will share it with you guys. Also Ethan if you’re reading this: Hi!

For context, Ethan is Lex’s boyfriend. He stopped me in the parking lot today after school and told me he had something to share with me. He’s been following this blog since our lunch “meeting” out of curiosity, which is to say that he’s read the post about my follow up with Deb.

He has concerns about the fact that Alice was acting off. Seeing as he personally wasn’t friends with her, he hadn’t noticed. He has, however, noticed something else. In someone else.

Additionally (and more directly related to the disappearance of Alice Fink) he has some details about the night at the party that he neglected to tell me earlier because he didn’t realize it would be important.

Now, I realize that most people reading these blog posts aren’t from Hatchetfield, which is why I’m taking a break from Ethan’s story in order to put what happened and what’s happening into perspective. I don’t know if all small towns have a weird house, but Hatchetfield has the Bouchard house.

It’s an abandoned house that overlooks the water and that pretty much everyone is afraid of. Adults never really talk about it and whenever I’ve brought it up, they get weirdly quiet. I don’t know about everyone else, but that only made me more curious.

Now, from what I’ve been able to dig up, the Bouchards had children. Four of them. Four children who all went missing over the same summer. There was not enough evidence pointing to the Bouchards themselves having done it, but people certainly seemed to think that was the case. The children still haven’t been found and I haven’t been able to figure out what happened to the Bouchards. No one’s bought the house since and so it just stands there and rots. Probably for the best.

Based on personal experiences with the house, it’s not the kind of building you enter. It’s the kind of building where you make a bet with your friends that you can stand on the patio for twenty seconds and then it starts feeling kind of weird, so you run after ten. If you call me a coward, I’m blocking you. I think there was a party in the backyard once but the HFPD put an end to that pretty quickly.

Back to Ethan!

Let’s start with Alice: On the night of the party, Ethan didn’t only see Alice when he walked Lex home. He also saw Alice when he was on his way home after dropping Lex off. She was standing in the middle of the street and she was staring at the Bouchard house. It’s admittedly not the weirdest thing in the world. It’s a strange thing and a local spook, and I don’t blame Ethan too much for not sharing this with me in the first place.

Now to the someone else: Lex’s little sister. Ethan apparently watches her a lot when Lex doesn't have time. He tells me that they’re very good friends, that they’re very comfortable with each other and that he knows her. Lex’s sister has no reason to act strangely around him and she usually doesn’t. Usually.

She’s been off for the past few weeks. I’m pretty sure he used both the words “strange” and “weird” to explain her recent behavior and seeing that I don’t know this sister, I’m just going to take his word as truth. Ethan told me that he originally just wrote this off as her being tired, seeing as Lex had told him she had been having trouble sleeping lately.

Reading about Deb’s experience with Alice made him worry. Walking around town with Lex’s sister while Lex was at work and watching her stop to stare at the Bouchard house made him scared.

I don’t know what this means but I really, really hope the answer is “nothing”.

– Elias


	5. Hot Chocolate Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes………. chapters are a thing that can actually be so short

Another kid went missing. It’s not officially a missing person case yet as it’s been less than twenty four hours, but I don’t have my hopes up.

I was at a coffee shop yesterday, just doing my homework and looking into the Bouchard house, and there he was, ordering a vanilla mocha and looking around nervously. And I mean, that’s not the strangest thing in the world. It doesn’t seem like the strangest thing in the world.

I’ve never gotten to know his name, always just referred to him as the hot chocolate boy because that’s all he ever orders. Except yesterday. Yesterday he was looking tired and nervous and restless and he didn’t order hot chocolate.

Maybe I should have realized something was up, maybe I should have done something, I don’t know. Or maybe he’s not really missing, maybe he just went to a friend’s place without telling his parents or brother and then skipped school. I wish I could honestly believe that’s what’s happening.

I’m sorry for this short and very non-informative post. I guess I’m just trying to wrap my head around what’s happening and provide you guys with developments in this case as things happen. I guess I’ll be back when I have something more constructive to report.

– Elias


	6. Cineplex Kid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i want to apologize on elias' behalf, he sometimes gets distracted when thinking about cryptids

Apologies for the lack of updates. Except for the fact that hot chocolate boy now officially is considered missing, not a whole lot has changed. I’ve tried to do more research on the house, but most message boards discussing it seems they either require passwords that I have not figured out how to get or just straight up to have been shut down, so I’m left with official articles that I’ve already concluded leads to nothing.

I tried the library. Every single book containing local history in the library had nothing on the house, though a large chunk of books did seem to be missing. I asked a librarian about it. Apparently a man in a ponytail had been there a week ago and had borrowed a lot of the books I was looking for myself. I tried to get her to give me his name but apparently that’s illegal.

Please know that whatever happened to Alice and hot chocolate boy is not happening to me. I am an investigator trying to get answers or at the very least hints. Keep it in mind when you read this: I went by the Bouchard house earlier today. I didn’t stop to stare at it, I just walked by it and threw a quick glance in its direction. Nothing strange seems to be going on. There’s no lights, no weird sounds, no nothing.

And then I went to the Cineplex. Like a normal person. Because yes, I might be in the middle of an investigation, but I’m also a high school kid and they were showing Psycho. Was I supposed to just miss that?

Those of you with a keen mind might already have figured out that something happened at the Cineplex considering that I am boring you with the details of my life. I ran into Ethan in the line. He didn’t have anything important to say, he just asked a lot of questions and quite frankly, I think he was trying to be annoying on purpose? Ethan if you’re reading this: It worked.

He asked about the house. And the kid selling tickets overheard, because when it was my time to buy a ticket he asked me what I knew about the Bouchard house. I tried to tell him that I didn’t know a lot, but Ethan decided to step in and tell him about this blog and what I was trying to achieve. And as annoying as that was, I suppose I should have thanked Ethan because the Cineplex kid told me he was friends with both of the missing kids (friends with Alice, dating hot chocolate boy, same same).

We met after the movie was over and he told me that Alice had started talking about the Bouchard house not too long ago. First, her words were of fascinacion, of awe and wonder and that little bit of harmless fright that came with real crime and being so close to it. Then those words had turned into words of real horror and real fright. She’d grown scared of the house.

He hadn’t considered it weird, hadn’t even thought it had anything to do with the fact that she went missing. He didn’t even find it weird when his boyfriend started talking about the house as well. Fascination first, then obsession and fear. According to him, our dear hot chocolate boy had nightmares about the house. Then he stopped sleeping and started stocking up on caffeine. And then he went missing.

The Cineplex kid doesn’t know if any of them ever went to the house. He also doesn’t believe it’s anything paranormal, because I asked him and he laughed at me as if I’d told a joke, so I just pretend that was my intention and didn’t push it further.

Now, I know that I go to church with my parents and whatnot, but I am a man of science first. I like to entertain the idea of the paranormal and I really do hope both Mothman and Nessie are real, but hope is not the same as belief. Also you can live a good life, not be a fucking asshole who hates joy and still believe in science. I know that has nothing to do with the case, but this is my blog so like????

Don’t get me wrong, if the weird thing that’s happening at the Bouchard house is “just” the regular, bad people brand of weird, I’m still in way over my head. But if it’s actually something else? Boi……….

– Elias


	7. Hannah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> elias uses bigger words than ethan and suddenly having to switch within the same story is wild. anyway here's a blog post from ethan green himself!

She’s gone. Hannah is gone. It’s not fair. Not to me, not to Lex, not to their mother and certainly not to Hannah. She’s just a fucking kid. And now she’s missing.

I asked Elias if I could borrow his blog to write about the experience. At first he told me to make my own blog. I told him he was being rude (which he was!) and he let me borrow it, so here I am. Then I told myself I was doing it to help the blog and it’s “story” move forward, to come with more information and fill in some blanks, but I’m not. I’m doing this for me. Maybe to work through my thoughts, I don’t know yet, but… This is for me. And for Hannah.

I walked her home after school yesterday. Made sure to walk in a big circle around the stupid fucking Bouchard house because at that point I didn’t trust it. I still don’t.

Lex was at work and their mother wasn’t home when I dropped Hannah off, so I stuck around for a while. Then my dad called me and told me dinner was getting cold. I asked her if she’d be alright and even offered for her to come home with me and wait until Lex or her mother returned. She said no.

Of course I shouldn’t have listened. I should have taken her home with me. I was stupid. It’s not my fault she’s missing, I know that. But maybe I could have pushed it back a bit or even stopped it, I don’t know.

The news was broken to me at 9 pm yesterday when Lex returned from work. She called me asking if Hannah was at my place. I think we both knew that something was wrong at that point. Very wrong.

Anyway, I think I’m leaving this investigation to Elias. And to the cops, I suppose. Bad things happen when you get too invested. And I’m not letting Lex lose me as well.

Ethan xx


	8. Danny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the final blog post on elias' blog is finally here

I’ve just left Ethan’s place. He’s devastated and considering how close he and Hannah seem to be, I suppose it’s only fair. I must confess that I didn’t expect to get dragged into this mystery on such an emotional level and yet here I am.

On my way home, I decided to stop by the Bouchard house. I’m not sure exactly what I expected. To revenge my friend and finally put an end to this, perhaps? Of course, that’d be foolish and I realize that. Fortune may favor the bold, but I hope the bold spare a little fortune for the calculated and hesitant.

Of course I’m not here to report inaction. I met someone by the house. Danny. On any other occasion, I think I would have been too terrified to talk to a boy my brain has labelled as cute, but he was sitting on the sidewalk across the street, staring at the building rather intensely and he had this look of hopelessness on his face (of course, that’s my interpretation of his expression; I did not ask him what his face was trying to convey and you should take my word as a subjective observation rather than an objective conclusion).

I asked him what he was doing here. He told me he lived in the house behind us, here meaning not the Bouchard house but rather the house right across the street from it. Then I asked him if he’d noticed anything strange and I’m “happy” to announce that he said yes.

Okay. Maybe happy is the wrong word, but I did put it in quotations so sue me. He told me how he’d gotten home early from the party the night Alice went missing because his sister hadn’t been feeling too well. He’d gotten her to bed and then gone into the garden to smoke. He told me he had seen a girl with red hair standing in the middle of the street for the entire time he was out there, just staring at the Bouchard house. He thought it might be Alice, but his memories of the night were a bit foggy so he wasn’t sure. When he looked out the window before going to bed, she’d still been standing there.

He hadn’t thought much of it until “that weird kid who always wears suspenders and thinks he’s so smart” suddenly did the same thing one night (in other words, our hot chocolate boy). Considering Alice had gone missing after Danny maybe saw her standing in the street like that, he decided to keep an eye out. Danny saw him go into the Bouchard house. He didn’t see him go out and he was, in his own words, too much of a coward to follow. He regrets it. And now he’s scared. So many kids have gone missing in such a short period of time and he’s afraid whoever’s taken them is hiding out right across the street. I asked him if he’d considered it being supernatural and he laughed at me, which I suppose is fair. But then he went quiet and stared off in the direction of the house again. Again, I’m interpreting, but he no longer seemed too sure it wasn’t supernatural. After a while, he thanked me for letting him talk and went off to go to bed.

I wish I could say that I then went home and wrote this at my computer or that it just happened and I had to write an update right away. Truth been told, I’ve been sitting here for what feels like hours. Maybe it has been hours, I’m not actually sure. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this, around everything, but it’s just not adding up.

Perhaps I’ve reached a conclusion. Not about the house, not about the disappearances, but about me. I’m not bold and I’m not brave. I’m not stupid either. But I’m curious. I need to figure out what’s going on. And I’m determined to put an end to it, whatever it is. So I’m going to go in there. I’ll update you guys on the other end.

Wish me luck.

– Elias

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has been incredible to write and i've enjoyed every second of it, but i will admit that past emmelie who outlined this was perhaps a bit too subscribed to the idea of never show your monster. perhaps one day i will write a sequel with more answers.
> 
> yell at me here or on tumblr (helenmcwife). and thank you so much for reading!!!!


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